Bette Davis Was Right

It's a bumpy ride.

The other day at school the kids were eating their kande (stew made of beans and maize and not much else) when out of the sky came a cloud of smoke which settled directly over our tiny diners. This has happened before so I dropped, rolled, felt the door for excessive heat, and beat it across the road to the Pastor's house. Literally across the road, his house is maybe 30 feet from the school. 

He was burning leaves and branches, and there was a veritable mushroom cloud over his house. Near the burn sight was a tree, and tied to that tree were two of his cows. Pastor has beautiful cows, he takes excellent care of his livestock. 

Stew made of spare parts of a cow. I would rather eat spare parts of a car.

As I crossed the road I saw him frantically untying said cows from the tree and bringing them to an area far away from the swirling, choking smoke. I walked over and greeted him, because every conversation here begins with a greeting. A maniac with a machete would wish you a hearty good morning before cleaving your head in two. Africans are genetically polite.

Anyway, after saying hi I asked him why he was moving his ng'ombe. He said smoke is bad for cows, of course. So I pointed across the road to the school, barely visible inside the nuclear cloud enveloping our kids, the church, and everything within a fifty yard radius, and asked him to extend the same courtesy to the kids as to his bovine friends. 

I was ever so polite about it too, you'd be proud. He was shocked, and quickly doused the fire. Pastor is a sweet guy, and always means well, but this is just an example of how it is here. Burn at will, wherever and whenever you please, with nary a thought for udderless bystanders.

Kids never know when they cross the line, but parents do.

I was giving the kids a math test a few weeks before this, just staring out the window while they sighed and erased and borrowed erasers. I've finally gotten past them asking the kids at the next table to borrow their rubbers. Anyway, (it's very hot, obviously I'm having a hard time staying on track) there was a woman on the road with her small boy, he couldn't have been more than two, if that. She was whipping him on the butt and legs with a small stick, while he sat on the ground screaming and for the most part, dodging the blows.

I guess she wanted him to get up, and if at first you don't succeed, keep whipping. I actually counted about 30 whacks (most of which fell short), during which time he decided to make a run for it and headed off down the road with mom and her stick in hot pursuit.

By now I'm sure you're asking yourself (or you should be), why I didn't intervene. Kids are beaten here, every last one of them, at school, at home, wherever they happen to be when they cross the line. Remember the parents have all given us permission to cane their kids. They know we don't beat the kids at school, although they just can't figure out why not. Maybe they think that since kids are doing well, they'd do twice as well if we caned randomly every week or so to keep the little buggers on their toes. 

We're in a time warp here, and except for mobile phones, motorcycles, and the colorful plastic buckets women carry on their heads, village life looks like a scene from the Old Testament. No kidding. Things in America have been changing at light speed due to technology, but the computer age hasn't hit the village. Change is unbelievably slow here, and folks do as they've done since Jesus was a kid. Although I'm hard pressed to imagine Mary chasing the son of God down the road with a stick. 

Like I've said many times, life is hard for a village woman.
This ancient woman should be resting under a tree, but she's not. 

I asked Vicent the other day how old he was and he said one. Another kid said sijui (I don't know). School kids at home know how old they are, but time stands still here, and nobody has birthday parties anyway, so I guess it's no big deal. No Christmas presents, Easter baskets, no chocolate bunnies...Life isn't much more exciting for women either, but the men seem to have it pretty good.

I'm sure all you politically correct folks out there are having heart attacks over what I've just written, so come on over here and see for yourself. Life is very different here.

For example... In Dar es Salaam they occasionally necklace a thief. Necklacing is dousing a tire with gasoline and tossing it over the head of the miscreant. Then of course the tire is lit and everyone stands around watching the show. Fun for the whole family. Our new teacher Pasiana was in Dar one day and came upon the remains of a recently necklaced ne'er-do-well. Almost worse than the necklacing is the lack of an actual trial before sentencing, just street justice, so possibly the criminal is, in actuality, not.

Before you cancel your plane reservations I want to say that necklacing is not too common. More often the thief is beaten to death, which is probably no real consolation to the thief, but smoke free and therefore environmentally sound.

Went to Mikumi Park the other weekend and were wondering why there were so few animals.
When we saw these guys we understood why all the other wanyama had bagged. Spent about 
an hour taking pictures of them. They look like big soft kittens, who can tear your throat out.
 

I have a friend who was trying to interest people in health insurance, at ridiculously low rates, and having a hard time convincing folks to sign up. As one man said in refusal, "But I'm not sick"' My point being that health insurance is a western luxury. 

Africa is not preventative, Africa is reactive. It's that same mindset that sends a kid to a govt school when the parent can afford private school fees. The kid hasn't failed yet, so why bother. But he will fail, and so it goes. 

These are Vicent, Vale and Ima, three red blooded African boys.
Ima is wearing a Hanna Montana sweatshirt, Vicent is arrayed in a 
Dora the Explorer vest and Vale sports the tiara. I  love this place. 

I try to spend most of my time in Std.1 and 2, because chekechea makes me want to poke my eyes out. The crying, the blank stares, the uncontrolled urinating. We've been working on simple addition, as well as sitting properly and not eating boogers. 

They need to answer a math problem before they leave for the day. I was working my way through the kids and stopped to tell Daudi to sit properly, to which he responded "7". My one consolation is that by next year he will probably be reading, no thanks to me. 

I like village life, but it can wear a hole right through your brain. It's a tough place to live. Everything here is normal, if you're from here. If you're not, it's another thing altogether. 

Sometimes on Sunday they have revivals up in the heart of the
village. Lots of music and dancing, hell fire and brimstone. 

The other day a young man came to my door and told me his bibi is sick and can't work so can I pay his school fees. My first response was "Who are you?" I did tell him that there are lots of jobs up at the Hands4Africa site and I would arrange work for him. All he had to do was go to the site and ask for Ruth. He never showed. I guess his bibi had a miraculous recovery. 

We've been reviewing our Math and English for the big test, and I wrote letter combinations on the board so the kids could write words underneath. Under cr, my Jenny wrote crap. I asked her if by any chance she meant crop. This cute little kid with four missing front teeth said, "No Teacher, crap". I guess she's been listening, and I am grateful that's all I've said.

L